Shadowlands Season 3 Week 11: Valor Uncapped

Blizzard copied last season, and uncapped valor and conquest this week. Resulting in a mad influx of 270-something characters competing for +2 key spots.

This week's affixes were Tyrannical - Inspiring - Quaking - Encrypted. One of the easier pug weeks I would say. Unless you do 3 melee dps + melee healer and don't cc the worst inspiring mobs.

Since this would be my first reset as guildless again, I had to think through what I wanted to do, and what was a bleed from what others wanted to do (or I thought others wanted to do, it's all a bit blurry). Last week the thought was just to play Viator the last month I intended to play patch and just see where it ended up. Then I thought to have a clear goal like the ones last season, like heroic raid ilevel and some score goal. Then just faff about. But the more time I was not in the guild, the more it was less of annoyance to log on. And then I became competitive. Against the only one one can truly measure yourself against. Yourself.

So I am going to push this season afterall. Where the goal is to beat Dominator as Viator, and Wutteät as Ghoset. I am going to do this by only pugging (not that anyone I know on horde still plays) and do it at my pace, my routes, by my schedule. Dominator and Wutteät got something like 10 weeks active from the season, and I have not completly shut them down. But they will only be played if someone on friends list asks if I want to join x or y, and I consider this highly unlikely at this point in time. So the bar right now is not that high, but it might shift at some point down the line.

Viator the Darkener

Viator dipped his feet in all three of the staples last week: raid, pvp and m+. Doing the lfr wing with 3 tier item bosses as fresh 60 seemed to be a given, but was not very fun so did not repeat. The PVP was fun as a distraction, but after I got the placeholder gear I wanted I stopped doing that too. Did a lot of keys, and got a big chunk of valor and score.

First +10 I did on character. Sanguine Depths, what a shock.

And gasp, the first +12 was also a Sanguini.

Character stats

Guild: Enraged Rubber Ducks

Professions: Mining 150 / Jewelcrafting 100

Mainspec: Protection

Offspec 1: Retribution

Covenant: Kyrian (Renown 80)

iLevel: 258 (Protection)

Legendaries: Seal of Righteous Fury (ring, rank 7) & Unity (neck, rank 7)

Tier: 4-piece set bonus

m+ Score: 1851

Raid progress: 3/10 LFR Sepulcher.

Valor Earned: 7335

Conquest Earned: 1648

Weeks active: 2

Keystones this week

Keystones joined completed (20):

De Other Side +5 ***

Tazavesh Streets +6 **

Mists of Tirna Scithe +9 ***

Theater of Pain +7 **

Tazavesh Gambit +5 ***

Plaguefall +6 ***

Halls of Atonement +8 ***

Sanguine Depths +10 **

Spires of Ascension +7 *

Necrotic Wake +5 ***

Mists of Tirna Scithe +11 **

Theater of Pain +11 **

Sanguine Depths +12 **

Tazavesh Streets +10 **

Spires of Ascension +10 *

Halls of Atonement +10 **

Tazavesh Gambit +10 ***

Necrotic Wake +11 **

De Other Side +11 **

De Other Side +8 *

Keystones joined not completed:

Keystones listed completed (3):

Sanguine Depths +5 ***

Mists of Tirna Scithe +8 ***

Plaguefall +10 ***

Keystones listed not completed (1):

Sanguine Depths +13 - the well geared and scored mage/warrior duo queue alt-f4ed after botching second boss. Twice. I was unsure about inviting a warrior, but decided to give it a shot. Will not repeat.

Raiding this week

-

PVP this week

Battlegrounds (2):

Isle of Conquest 0-1 (0-1)

Ashran 1-0 (1-0)

Arena (4):

Solo Shuffle 9-15 (9-15)

Next reset

I am hoping for some trinkets from the vault or as drops, but I am unwilling to target farm them. Incremental dungeon difficulty for score increases for easy valor and route/character testing will still be the name of the game. Getting a 15 done should be possible, but not that important.

Ghoset the Astral Walker

Ghoset simply did some keys and a spot of Zereth Mortis this week. PVP not fun enough to warrant placeholder gear on a second character in such a short timeframe.

Character stats

Guild: Enraged Rubber Ducks

Mainspec: Vengeance

Covenant: Kyrian (Renown 80)

iLevel: 250 (Vengeance)

Legendaries: Scorched Soul Shackles (wrists, rank 6) & Unity (head, rank 7)

Tier: -

m+ Score: 1039

Raid progress: -

Valor Earned: 3680

Conquest Earned: -

Weeks active: 3

Keystones this week

Keystones joined completed (8):

Theater of Pain +5 **

Sanguine Depths +5 ***

Halls of Atonement +6 ***

De Other Side +5 ***

Tazavesh Gambit +4 ***

Necrotic Wake +4 ***

Tazavesh Gambit +5 ***

Plaguefall +5 ***

Keystones joined not completed (0):

Keystones listed completed (2):

Mists of Tirna Scithe +4 ***

Spires of Ascension +7 **

Keystones listed not completed (0):

PvP this week

Battlegrounds:

Arena:

Raiding this Week

-

Next week

This character is struggling to get items that can be upgraded to tier. Only have a very low ilevel chest at the moment that can be upgraded, and enough Relics to buy one slot. So getting gloves, legs or shoulders from vault/drop and get some more relics to buy the last piece would be huge. Other than that, try to get a fortified score in every dungeon.

From Alliance Guild Groups to Horde PUGs

I was going to write a big note on this but all it boils down to are these 4 things:

Tanks are much less in demand. It takes longer to join a key as horde tank, than warlock last season as pug alliance. This week is special since valor became uncapped so the 3k rated 270 geared tanks wanted to speedrun 2-6s for valor, so life was rough as a fresh tank. However, listing own key was totally fine, but losing the option to do whatever makes it harder to aim for gear, score or simple variation.

PUG requirements are a bit silly at times. For a +7?

I did not make this party comp, but I think this is something I will aim for whenever I list my key. Not the details group, but the group I am currently in. Combat res redundancy. Bloodlust redundancy. I'm pretty much fine with the 3 dps classes being any spec. Resto druid is my favorite healer to have on both pally and dh. Healthstones. Just so much to like. Double soothe. Misdirect. Double offensive dispell.

All the things that gets stale in guild groups, from never really bothering on first NW boss or wait with approaching fog wall in HOA to how groupmaking can get iffy and endless amounts of compromises. And that's with people not doing it on purpose, god knows how it is if you play with people who intentionally do that kinda stuff. Pugs can be a lot of things, but never stale. Some NW groups I've been in can pull all the trash to first boss and do the mechanics perfectly and barely have to move boss while others somehow manage to make it evade, putt half the area and prolly cover most of De Other Side with goo. People who make "observations" after making a mess of something can get ignored, or the group just folds. Same thing with people using EH or the spammy healer addon. More time gets wasted and some pugs are downright horrible, but at least you don't end up in a social setting where some people can never stop being annoying.

I say that, but I assume puging will get stale due to the sheer variance in what people can do gets stale and you'd rather have a static group that does group learning. It's just one of those paradoxes. :)